Blue Mistflower in a Saratoga Springs Garden This year brought many new native plant garden projects, and many return customers who wanted more projects where mature natural gardening projects exist already. Natural landscaping can be addicting like that, once a person experiences how easy and beautiful native plant landscaping is, and how many wonderful [...]
Last year I did a landscape renovation for an urban client that I felt crystalized a wildlife corridor in Saratoga Springs, NY through the positioning of multiple individual local properties with eco-savvy landscape design. This habitat renewal space is located in front yard gardens by the Oklahoma Track, on East Avenue in Saratoga Springs. The [...]
This spring I was delighted to be asked to be a part of one of the loveliest projects I could imagine. There's a health food store in Saratoga Springs, NY called Healthy Living, which occupies the former JC Penny retail location in the Wilton Mall. Healthy Living sells organic and artisan foods, much of it [...]
In July of 2013 I designed and installed an eco-friendly garden in Saratoga Springs, NY. The new, eco-friendly landscaping is mostly located in the front yard of the property, and it's really developed into something beautiful this year. We decided to create a formal garden theme to fit the track neighborhood motif. There is gorgeous [...]
About this time last year I was contacted for one of the largest landscape design projects I've had the pleasure of working on to date. The formal wildflower garden project on Saratoga Lake is in its second year of development, and it's really starting to take shape into what it will look like. The homeowners [...]
Recently I had the opportunity to help develop a new secret garden in Saratoga Springs, NY. There was a small, disorganized collection of existing shrubs and perennials in an established bed by the patio that backed up to a wild, overgrown woodland area. It was easy and fun to bring some order to the garden [...]
At the Children's Butterfly Garden of a Saratoga County Elementary School This week I had the privilege of designing a butterfly garden at a Saratoga County Elementary School. The kids were lots of fun to work with, and they were so excited to learn about habitat gardening and the different species of native plants we [...]
Rain gardens and an apple orchard near Saratoga Springs, NY This week I was the landscape designer for a fun and useful beautification project near Saratoga Springs, NY that included a simple storm catch basin rain garden and a miniature apple orchard. The rain garden sits at the drainage spout for the neighborhood's storm water [...]
This week I was called to create a new, eco-friendly garden design in Saratoga Springs, NY. This lovely, thoughtfully landscaped property is minutes from the Saratoga race track. The garden's design composition can be designated "eco-friendly" and a low maintenance landscape because the plants we chose are species native to the Saratoga region, with the [...]
Being an ecological garden designer in Saratoga County involves a constant reawakening it seems. Every day the world seems new. The habitat here is so rich, so vibrant that most days I feel like Alice in Wonderland. Everywhere you turn in Clifton Park, Burnt Hills, Ballston Spa, Saratoga Springs and all other regions encompassed by [...]
Last summer I began transforming a bland ornamental garden in Burnt Hills, NY into a colorful, low maintenance native plant habitat oasis. We began referring to the newly eco-friendly garden property as, "the bluebird house" because soon after the addition of the first round of native plants bluebirds began frequenting the gardens and yard. One [...]
Saratoga Springs celebrity gardening with Allison Mack? I think it's taken me roughly a year to process something really cool that's happening in my business and personal life. Somehow an internationally famous actress and activist heard about my ecological garden design business and in the summer of 2012, she contacted me to develop a wildlife [...]
This past weekend I had the privilege of being asked to teach a workshop on butterfly habitat gardening at the Albany 2013 Capital District Garden and Flower Show. I've since heard from several people who wanted to attend and couldn't; this post will summarize the butterfly habitat gardening presentation. Carole Sevilla Brown recently composed an [...]
October started in the most lovely way I could have wished for: planting a mostly edible native plants garden in Saratoga in the balmy, tasteful weather. We have a proud line of 12 Jerusalem Artichokes (Helianthus tuberosa) on either side of the fence, with some Goldenrod "Fireworks" (Solidago rugosa) interplanted. The front edge is June-bearing [...]